Slashdot Mirror
The Space Shuttle Returns
An anonymous reader writes "NASA's Return to Flight site details the space shuttle's to return to active use. The Flash intensive site features details on the mission, the crew, and the shuttle itself. Additionally, the site features none other than Scott Bakula as Captain Archer on the bridge of the Enterprise (USS, not STS)."
It's looking for revenge. "Earth, you killed my brother... and now it's your turn to die!"
Flash intensive site, a Scott Bakula video, and a front page Slashdot article.
Well, I'm guessing that NASA got that bandwidth sponsorship afterall.
Lets just hope we're not gonna see an article on Slashdot talking about another delay for launch due to limited funds.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
Turned out it was cheaper to pay NASA to create a real Star Trek than to pay Paramount to produce season 5 of Enterprise.
Argh! Fingers twisted when t-hfgdihing-yping out response...
And grammatical correctness too.
The Flash intensive site features details on the mission, the crew, and the shuttle itself.
I'm glad they spent $7,500 on an ultra-flash-intense site. Your tax dollars at work.
Until Paramount cancels the program.
Can we do something? Maybe if we all pledge money now, they won't cancel the shuttle after this season.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
It's look like that's flash enabled sites that I see on www.shockwave.com
http://www.michel.eti.br
It's been a long time
Since the last shuttle flight
There've been some changes
And a hell of a lot of gripes
But I can see the ship on the gantry now;
Nothing's in our way!
And they're not gonna hold at T-minus-10
We won't miss our window today!
'Cause I've got faith in Discovery!
I'm goin' where the SRBs take me!
I've got faith in Atlantis!
If we break down she'll come an' get me!
I've got faith in George Bush!
And on the budget funds he'll send me
I'll go all the way to Mars...!
'Cause I've got faith (I've got faith)
I've got faith in these shuttles of ours!
Cut to Scott Bakula in elaborate Mission Control set:
"Hi! I'm Scott Bakula! You might remember me from such cancelled sci-fi shows as Star Trek: Enterprise and Quantum Leap..."
Link troll
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
"Al, why haven't I leaped yet?"
"Ziggy says you can't leap until the site gets one million visitors"
You know guys, I'd mod you up if I had the points. I'm amazed at what comedy can result from my own stupidity.
Having saved a few cents on O rings here, a few cents on insulating foam there and another few cents on leading wing edges they can now afford to hire the best web artists and B list TV stars to build a really cool website. ;-)
Seriously speaking, I'm all for NASA communicating what they are doing but I prefer there older sites which have been more content driven and highly functional rather than "flashy".
Just what we need, another generation inspired to become astronauts because it means "we can have sex with green women in bikinis".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Or: "Some Linux Advocates Surf Here. Damn overclocked Trekkies!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I love it when a government agency spends money on self-promoting hype rather than something substantial.
Insert witty sig here.
Scott Bakula, an entertainment figure, on behalf of the NASA marketing dept. hyping the shuttle program to the entertainment-starved masses (rhetoric). :).
And Arnold would become the gov. of California, and Jesse "The Body" Ventura of Minnesota.
It's interesting what life starts to look like from a country that is inundated with entertainment.
... What's next on this list?
Does Nasa *really* need the support of the masses who sit in front of their weekly TV shows? or do they already have it? Should the NASA crew members not be making the cameo apperances since they are the *real* "heroes"? Scott Bakula is an actor who will never step into space. If it comes down to entertainment factor, might as well use Mickey Mouse as a spokesman (cool factor ruled out
tell me, when did you last explore a Trekkie?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Isn't that a bit presumptuous?
How do we know it's not the Scott Bakula's evil Mirror Universe twin?!?
Bruce
Non-Flash Version Text Only Version
PR is absolutely mission critical work for NASA.
If they lose public support, they lose funding, it's as simple as that.
If this web package was purchased for even as much as 1 million dollars, it was money well spent, possibly one of the most important line items in their budget.
Using Scott Bakula, while of debatable wisdom to those of us who hated Enterprise, shows astounding good sense on the part of someone at NASA. We can debate about whether Shatner or Stewart would have been better, but at least they're in the right ballpark.
But the site looks sharp, it's informative to a lay-person, and tries to make the shuttle program seem real in viewer's minds.
The only gripe I have is the CPU hit for playing the video. What codec is that?
disclaimer: I think the shuttle should be scrapped and we then return to capsule based launches which were cheaper and safer even with 60's technology.
"Al, why haven't I leaped yet?"
"Ziggy says--DEADBEEF?"
"Great, does that mean I can leap now?"
"Umm...nope."
"Wait--did you install Windows on Ziggy again?"
"Umm...yes. Sorry Al."
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
I wouldn't call it self-promoting hype, I would call it assurance of continued funding. See, they are a government agency, which is funded by the US taxpayers. And as such, believe it or not, the taxpayers could decided to stop funding it. So any good agency that wants to keep their funding must ensure their funders know what sort of good stuff (tm) they are getting for their money.
In other words, NASA isn't assured anything, and it is vital for them to keep their PR efforts front and center to assure their continued operations. Frankly, people would be bitching if they did the opposite.
Well, they're flying a white elephant anyway, so what's an additional couple million?
Why not have an actual NASA person do the intro? It's a pretty sad joke when you need the Captain of a failed fictional show to generate hype about the return to space for manned missions. Cause you know an actor is far more qualified than a Rocket Scientist to tell you about the importance of the Space Shuttle in the endeavor of space exploration. What ass-clown in NASA PR team is responsible for this? It's revolting that NASA needs to resort to Flash-porn and hype. Damn you unwashed masses!
"Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not an aerospace engineer!"
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Yes, I hate it when our government institutes created to advance science in our country try to inspire the next generation. I hate it when they present science and technology in a manner that captures the imagination of the public. Don't they know the place of science in this country - they should just stay in their cubicles out of the public eye where they belong.
What better spokeman for NASA than the captain from a scifi show that was canceled for lack of funding and public support.
Seems all too familiar...
Of course, at my high school, one of my friends told the guidance counseler that he wanted to be a beach philosopher. (You know, sit on the beach, play bongo drums, occassional say pot-inspired wisdom. Not a bad job if you can get it.)
From one of his popular books, or Nova episodes, or something:
Average Person, not recognizing to whom he's speaking: "Excuse me, sir, but why do you have Feynman diagrams drawn on the side of your VW Microbus?"
RF: "Why not? I'm Richard Feynman."
Tag lost or not installed.
Of course comments like "are you FUCKING KIDDING ME????" are about as grown-up as the come.
Cursing whhile trying to make a point simply makes you look an idiot.
Gone!
*while
Yes I have the ability to spell.
Gone!
> A postage stamp sized video that takes 100% of a 3ghz machine to play.
> Well done NASA, you guys rock.
Yeah, c'mon NASA, it's exactly rocket science you kn...
OK. We may be in trouble.
L.
http://dayton.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/MEDIUM/GPN-2000-0 01363.jpg
. html
t ifacts/ HS-Enterprise.htm
"The Shuttle Enterprise rolls out of the Palmdale manufacturing facilities with Star Trek television cast members. From left to right they are: Dr. James D. Fletcher, NASA Administrator, DeForest Kelley (Dr. "Bones" McCoy), George Takei (Mr. Sulu), Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura), Leonard Nimoy (the indefatigable Mr. Spock), Gene Rodenberry (The Great Bird of the Galaxy), and Walter Koenig (Ensign Pavel Checkov)"
taken from http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2000-001363
This is the Space Shuttle Enterprise, which is not usually counted among the shuttles. It's not spaceworthy, and was made to test Shuttle landings from the air (among other non-space tests), and was releasted from atop a (large) airplane for its flights, as shown here:
url:http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/ar
There's tons more on the (Space Shuttle) Enterprise, it's supposedly in the Smithsonian and you can see it in person - just google.
But looking back historically, that photo has a lot more class (even without Shatner - was he making another record? Okay, ESPECIALLY without Shatner!) than this thing with the series Enterprise (I haven't even seen it - the video doesn't play for me on Firefox 1.0.3 - NASA's not down with Firefox?) and the heroic but failed attempt at saving it.
Tag lost or not installed.
http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/artifacts/HS-E nterprise.htm
Yes, I had used the preview button with parent, I just didn't READ it carefully.
Tag lost or not installed.
I'm no expert on space travel, so I'm sure someone more informed than I can fix the numbers, but a little research has told me that there have been between 2 and 9 shuttle missions a year between 1981 and now, with a 2 year hiatus after Challenger. Assume, the average is 4 per year, for 22 years, that means that there have been 88 shuttle flights. I'm fairly young, so I don't remember most of the space program, but I can only think of two Shuttle disasters, Challenger and Columbia. That gives the shuttle a success rate of 97.7%. That doesn't sound all that dangerous to me...
Of course, each failure is by definition fatal and expensive, but I wouldn't call the space program a failure or overly dangerous.
The Saturn I, IB, and V boosters all had a 100 percent success rate during launch. There have really only been 4 major disasters in the nearly 50 year history of spaceflight, and only three of them fatal (Apollo 1, and the two shuttles. Apollo 13 being the 4th, and nonfatal disaster)
They can mitigate the risks involved but never even come close to eliminating them all.
That statment applies to LIFE. The same can be said of cars, airplanes, boats... horses... Life is risky. Period. the question is, do the benifits outweigh the risks. I'd say yes, but I'm sure there are those that disagree.
bullshit, slashdot said the shuttle would die forever like 2 weeks ago, and now its in its glorious return,what next?
To your Disclaimer, they Are... Every single CEV design has a capsule based reentry.
t s. html
http://exploration.nasa.gov/documents/cer_repor
Here is some better info, these are all the Shuttle Launches in the past and the future planned launches.
http://www.thespaceplace.com/shuttle/past.html
And the guy above is a troll with no experience in rocket science. AFAIK If there is an explosion or a leak in a tank, the Hydrogen dissapates into the atmosphere so quickly that all the energy can not be put into an explosion. So him trying to compare the energy by MJ of the shuttle to a nuke is flawed because the mechanics are vastly different.
"A postage stamp sized video that takes 100% of a 3ghz machine to play.
Well done NASA, you guys rock."
Come on! Don't tell me that it is news to you that the NASA requires ten times the resources the Russians would use to do twice the work?
You also absolutely have no clue how ridiculous your sound do you?
Yes it is a space agency and one of it's goals is to inspire children and to garner support from the tax payers. They can't do that if they don't make nice flash animations like this. Hell I know a lot more then most people about the space shuttle and I found the site and videos a little entertaining and informative.
BoooHooo Robocop!! Yeah ok Children-Like Adults, get your head out of your ass next time. Instead of making your opinions by watching some biased news opinions, why don't you actually watch a meeting of congress or a presidential speech? Nope I bet you don't and I also bet that even though im telling you this now, your just going to shrugg it off because "Bleh stupid american, I don't need to know anything like that to know you all suck and are stupid and fat and drive SUVs and love eating middle eastern babies for dinner"
You Europeans and your PsuedoIntelligence...
Wow, all this arguament, and just because I used 'grammatical' because it flowed better! If I'd used 'spelling correctness' it wouldn't have made much sense (and THAT would have been gramatically incorrect), and woe betide me if I had written 'spellatical'!
Its people like you who give the rest of the world a bad name. Sure, America has its problems, but don't go simply call everyone childish in a huge blanket statement without at least SOME justification. I'm surprised you aren't a -1 Troll yet, even considering that you are an Anonymous Coward (particularly applicable here).
The fallacy implied here is that the success rate is the only important measure of how risky the manned space flight program is. A better gauge would be to assess would be the gap between absolute risk and marginal benefit. Absolute risk isn't a percentage - it's the average amount of money you have on the line each time you launch a shuttle, which would be something like the failure rate times the expense of the orbiter, plus however much you value the lives of your astronauts. Marginal benefit would be how much money you would save by performing the science by humans in space that could otherwise be done by robots, plus whatever value you place on the experiments you can't do without humans in space. The problem is that we have a net deficit, on the risk side. The shuttle program is a non-way to do science - projects like Hubble and ISS were designed largely as a way to justify the shuttle's continued operation, which is why their servicing is crippled without it. With the new Delta IV rocket, there's no question we could launch a payload the size of Hubble, and if properly designed, it won't need servicing over its useful scientific lifetime anyways. There's absolutely no reason to send a human up into space to do science, when virtually everything we send up could be automated with proper design. And so this is where we come to the risk. Whereas the whole of American economy depends on automobiles, and the absolute loss from any given accident is minimal in comparison to the benefits that we recieve from their usage, the absolute risk from each launch of the shuttle is enormous. What the shuttle program is tantamount to is giving a select number of people who are willing to risk their lives for a joyride the opportunity to take one. Is that worth billions of dollars that could be spent on real science?
And Soyuz 1. And Soyuz 11. But of course, they were russians...
Oh, and the X-15 was a suborbital flight, so that could count if you weren't picky...
And the six separate fatal training accidents...
And the hundreds of exploding unmanned rockets, of course...
Wow, it is pretty dangerous! But, as you say, everything is risk, and I sure as hell would rather die in a space shuttle than falling down the stairs. Yee-HAW!!
Real world:
* Pound for pound, none of the 60's launch systems were significantly cheaper than the Shuttle.
* None of the 60's spacecraft flew enough times to make any statistically valid judgement as to their safety. Reading any decent history of manned spaceflight shows numerous problems and close calls on both sides of the Curtain.
Erm... Soyuz?
So. Bakula will never get into Outer Space eh? hahahaha If Bakula and the rest of the Screen Actors Guild members decide to ante up $1.6 million, you'd be surprised how fast they (William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Checkov, Gil Gerard & Erin Gray) could get there... AHEAD OF THE SHUTTLE... http://www.newpath4.com/forsalespacecraftenginecon stantpowertheory.htm . All S.A.G. need do is hire the Space-X people to design my craft. I've already got the engine AND the design for the craft to utilize it. And while Americans may laugh and chuckle and jeer as they always seem wont to do, other countries are finding my web page rather interesting. As the hurricanes, earthquakes & tsunamis increase from the ever-so-slight global weather changes, the Shuttle becomes terribly SMALL. It doesn't even qualify as a "starship". It's a flying turkey that needs 9 months to get to the next dead planet beside us. Which would be just fine if we weren't destroying Planet Earth so much faster. We're turning Earth into Mars a great deal faster than we can turn Mars into Earth. We need for an engine that can be mass-produced quickly, an engine that can run cars AND is Space-capable. And that's what I have. A Model-T to the Stars using an engine worthy of Vulcans... Riley, http://www.newpath4.com/ .
Soyuz only seems safer, when in reality, the two are about even. It is true that when you factor in total deaths on Spache Shuttles you come up with a larger number. Soyuz crew: 3, Space Shuttle crew: 7. Crash for crash, bodies pile up faster from space shuttle crashes, and that's when they have the same failure rate.
Failure rate and fatality rate are different ratios, and "safer" is so damn subjective....
Like what I said? You might like my music
More palatable for the vast non-geek audience out there... most people don't like to read reams of text to have an idea of what the next mision of Nasa is about...
Budgetwise I don't beleive a flash site is going to break the bank...
My $0.02
I can only think of two Shuttle disasters, Challenger and Columbia. That gives the shuttle a success rate of 97.7%. That doesn't sound all that dangerous to me...
It's a pretty awful track record compared to Soyuz - hundreds of launches and no fatalities since the '70s. And Soyuz can get six astronauts into orbit for a fraction of the cost of the Suttles, even taking into consideration the fact you'd have to launch two Soyuz capsules to do it.
The Shuttles are just about the highest-priced payload launchers on the planet right now, and not even the most reliable. As manned launchers they're overkill - you don't need to send up the people with heavy payloads. The Columbia disaster gave us an opportunity to kill this white elephant and switch to more reliable, less expensive alternatives.
Instead, NASA is soldiering on with the flying crematorium, while blowing additional taxpayer cash on lame PR staring a B-actor from a failed incarnation of Star Trek. Pathetic. Appropriate, but pathetic.
That gives the shuttle a success rate of 97.7%. That doesn't sound all that dangerous to me...
Would you drive your car if your brakes had a success rate of 97.7%?
Space is dangerous. Period.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
>> That gives the shuttle a success rate of 97.7%
I rest my case.
" Promise of future employment in your father's corporation or similar does not make you successful"
Well, it worked for George Bush Jnr...
Almost 300 Million Americans, and 6 Million are in an car crash ever year. Do the math. About 2% of Americans are involved in a car accident EACH YEAR.
Life is dangerous. Period.